Where I refrain.

A Lyrical Love-Letter.

---

Where I refrain.

---

It does not suit me

to fit people

into any kind of vision

I knowingly

or unknowingly

hold for them.

I refrain from any notion

that might bind you

to my story—

for this impulse

shrinks horizons

and clips wings,

putting holes

into the largeness

made for you (and I).

Once, I faltered:

I discovered too late

I’d been written

into someone else’s script—

a role I could not learn.

So I step back now,

offering room—

spacious as many boats

riding larger seas,

seas where there is plenty.

This is my practice

of generous love:

to hold my story softly,

and keep their story

wide open,

unbound to anything

that

would

keep

either

of

us

small.

---

Thank you for being here. Paid subscriptions allow me to keep writing these love-letters and maintain a writing practice. Choosing to sow into ‘Catching Shower Flowers’ as a paid subscriber is a generous acknowledgment that you value what you read here, that you are not just an audience to the work, but a contributor to the unfolding of it. I am so grateful for this opportunity to do the very thing my heart feels called to do—to take notice and make art about it.

Love Tess